the inescapable paradoxes of war
by symphonies of you
Summary: "The tyranny of war has left him desperate and directionless, and he's adrift in search of a way home, a way beyond the barrier separating him from his loved ones." My take on Remus's thoughts on war- James and Lily's deaths, Peter's "death," and Sirius's traitorousness. RATED T for slight swearing. ONE-SHOT.


**A QUICK NOTE: **I've never written anything from Remus's POV before, so bear with me if I involuntarily screw up your canon. And I don't think everything is exactly in accordance with JKR's canon, but this is _fanfiction_ and it's alright for it to be a tad bit different, so please don't hate if you find an error. But feel free to point it out!

**DISCLAIMER: **Don't own anything you recognize. All JKR's. :)

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**WORDS: **1,495

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The thing about war is that it starts out as a smattering of flickering, barely-there flames—_little conflicts_—that, without any warning, metamorphoses into a reckless coalition of terrifying wildfires that show no mercy or remorse as they steal the lives of too many innocents and too little villains.

He sits alone in a bar with a half-empty bottle of Firewhisky for company. Breathing deeply, he wonders how he got here, how war has greatly altered the meaning of life, how Death chooses which lives he would like to collect.

Submerging himself in the bank of memories stored in the back of his weary mind, he laughs the sort of maniacal laugh one would never expect to hear coming from Remus John Lupin. He looks back to his school days and revels in the comfort of old, pleasant memories.

Old, pleasant memories filled with James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew.

_His best friends_.

Merlin, they were like _gods_. They were teenagers and they were Greek gods of the old, seated on ivory-backed thrones above the worshipping crowd of admiring students—they lived the life of coveted _perfection_.

He remembers the moment the Sorting Hat shouted _Gryffindor_ for a scared, sickly boy and how that scared, sickly boy shyly approached a welcoming table of cheering and clapping students. It was the first time he felt maybe, _just maybe_, he could belong somewhere.

Fast forward, and he's in the First Year Boys' Dormitory. He can't help a smile that he hasn't worn in days, a smile that stretches across his tired face, when he thinks back to how he met them.

"Hi, I'm James."

"Remus. Remus Lupin."

"Oi Lupin, the name's Sirius!"

"Er, hi, I suppose."

"And that lump over there is Pettigrew!"

"I'm not a lump! And please call me Peter."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Peter."

"So, now that we all know each other, who wants to plan the first prank of the year?"

"_I'm _in. Remus? Pettigrew?"

He allows himself another swig from his now nearly-empty bottle of Firewhisky.

Over the years, they became acquainted with Frank, Benjy, Dorcas, Marlene, Emmeline, Mary, and of course, James's _one true love_: Lily. But the four boys—_Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs_—remained the tightest band of boys that has ever terrorised Hogwarts, a band of boys who dubbed themselves as the Marauders.

Well, _he _didn't terrorise Hogwarts all too much; he left the chaos to James and Sirius. And Peter didn't really do much, if he's going to be honest.

When he confessed his _I'm-sort-of-a-werewolf_ issue to his friends, he cringed in expectation of garnering looks of horror and pity and disgust from his friends. An overwhelming fondness flowers in his chest as he remembers how supportive and excited they were, especially James. _Godric, he loved James._ James was the sort of person who never hated anyone, unless you had the unfortunate luck of being a slimy Slytherin, and didn't know the meaning of "prejudice." And he was one of the most amazing yet _exasperating_ people he had ever met because how on earth could having a werewolf for a friend be_ exciting_? If anything, it would be dangerous.

(That would be James: optimistic and undeniably noble until the very end.)

But it was Sirius's idea for the boys to become Animagi, which surprised Remus because James was the one who excelled at Transfiguration among the four of them. And it amused and touched him immensely at the same time because Sirius isn't exactly the book-type, and he somehow came up with the astounding idea via his _first _visit to the Library.

(Oh Sirius, he was such a loyal, fierce _bastard_.)

When they graduated, they immediately signed up for the Order, the elite group organised by their favourite headmaster. They were full of life and too ready to put their lives on the line—_too young and full of naivety_. He can't believe that the day they signed up –_June 5, 1978_—was only a bit over three years ago, but he reckons that's what war does: it distorts one's perception of time and harshens the ever-deepening toil of suffering and pain and hopelessness.

War has changed all of them, all of the Order, all of the Marauders, all of the people fighting on the Light side of this devastating war. He now knows things that he shouldn't at the young age of barely-twenty, and he's seen too much sorrow, evil, and terror to even count the stars in the sky and fathom the good things that life is meant to offer.

"War has turned us all into fools," he whispers, a resigned sadness lingering in his defeated eyes.

A sob escapes his mouth and _dammit_, tears are beginning to obscure his vision due to the build-up of nostalgia in him. He signals the barmaid for another bottle of Firewhisky to drown the inundation of emotions and feelings out.

When the barmaid hands him his fourth bottle, he grabs it, sloshing probably a third of it all over the table as he downs it and _bloody hell_, the tears have broken loose and now they're tracing the ugly scars that blood and ash and glass have etched into the shadows of his skin.

(So much for drowning out the emotions.)

Everyone's gone, gone, gone. That's the only thing he's ever been scared of: dying alone with no one by his side. He had always been the awkward boy in the corner whom no one ever paid attention to, always until Hogwarts happened.

And _dammit_, now he's all alone in this dark, wretched world. James and Lily are dead, Peter is dead, Benjy has been blown to bits, Dorcas is dead, Emmeline has gone missing, Mary is dead, and Frank and Alice have been driven mad by Bellatrix.

Now, it's just Sirius and him who are left.

(And Harry, but he's in safe hands. _Godric_, he hopes that he's someplace safe, safe from the never-ending darkness that this world has plunged into.)

Sirius, a heartless traitor locked away in Azkaban who killed his fucking best friend—_James_—and the one who admired him the most—_Peter_—and turned on them at their most vulnerable.

And him, a wandering soul stripped bare of the carefree laughter and happiness and glory that he once knew—glory that_ all four of them _once knew—with no one to save him, to die fighting with him.

With no one to tell him that _everything will be okay_.

He never thought that he'd be the person sitting alone in a dingy bar, drinking himself into oblivion and a faraway land of nothingness and timelessness.

And yet, here he is.

(He detests the irony of war, of life, of loss.)

Laughing at the irony of his current situation, he throws the four bottles—one for each of the Marauders—one by one at the wall and watches the glass shatter upon impact into a thousand shades of frustration and despair, despair that threatens to tarnish all shreds of hope that are still burning feebly in his mangled heart.

He faintly hears the barmaid shouting in the background, and he laughs even harder.

But his mad laughter turns into sobs of brokenness as he puts his head in his hands, realising that the state of the broken bottles and shards of glass littering the cold floor is comparable to the state of his heart and innocence. He has lost too much and he has lived a thousand lives in the three years of this plaguing war.

He has looked Death in the face too many times and lived to tell the sad tale.

_And only the good die young._

(So, what does that say about him?)

The tyranny of war has left him desperate and directionless, and he's adrift in search of a way home, a way beyond the barrier separating him from his loved ones.

They say that home is where the heart is, and he knows that his heart belongs to his friends, his best friends and what they used to be. His heart belongs to his old school days, where he can find solace and pretend that there isn't a war going on and everyone is still alive and Sirius isn't a traitor. His heart belongs to his memories, where carefree laughter and happiness and glory never run out.

The thing about war is that no one knows how it's going to end, how the chances are of good overcoming evil like in the stories, how much they'll lose or gain—_if the people you love will end up leaving you to take on the world alone_.

He has never felt so alone.

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**A/N: **How was it? I couldn't stop crying while writing this, haha. Hope you liked it!

Please don't favourite without reviewing! =)

-nic.


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